If any one platform is poised to make the most noise in 2013, it’s Chrome OS. The vocal minority has made it clear, Windows 8 is not the savior Microsoft is looking for. And Google is here to pick up the slack. This week, another well-known PC manufacturer has lowered their Windows flag, if only a little bit, to give Chrome OS a shot. HP’s first Chromebook is here.

Released as the HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook, HP’s first venture into Chrome OS has come under fire as questionable when stacked up against the competition. In a spec for spec shootout against Samsung’s ARM-based Chromebook, Acer’s Intel Chromebook and Lenovo’s Intel Chromebook, the Pavilion 14 manages to keep up in most areas. The key differentiators between most models, not including the Samsung Chromebook’s ARM processor, are screen size, battery life and price.

While all Chromebooks available right now use a 1366 x 768 display resolution, only the Pavilion 14 has a 14-inch display. If a larger display is what you’re looking for, the Pavilion 14 may be a good choice for you. But it’s going to come at the cost of pixel density, weight, battery life, and pricing. The HP Pavilion is heavier than other Chromebooks, has worse battery life, and costs $330. The Pavilion 14 is cheaper than Lenovo’s Chromebook, but it’s more expansive than both the Samsung and Acer models. There’s a good chance anyone looking for an ultra-portable Chromebook is going to go with a cheaper model whose battery lasts twice as long on a single charge.

HP may not have designed the best Chromebook money can buy right now, but as stated in the title of this post, it’s the thought that counts. HP has proved they’re willing to step away from Windows and more traditional Linux operating systems, like Ubuntu, to give Chrome OS a shot. In the end, it’s a good thing. Chrome gets more exposure and affordable computing becomes available from more manufacturers.

Most Tweeted This Week

I bought the Samsung Chromebook series 5 last week and i couldn’t be happier. Having to read 4 books at a time for school, keep sermons prepped, and plan new classes for ministry keeps me busy. Instead of 9 notebooks, i now have everything sync’d to google docs and have access to it whenever/wherever i go. I couldn’t be happier. 14″ screen with less battery life isn’t my cup of tea, but the chromebook is an excellent proposition for anyone busy and on the go.

Compared to the other Chromebooks, this one might be very well tailored to people who mainly use notebooks as desktop replacements. They don’t care so much about weight and battery lifetime but more about screen and keyboard size aka (grand) parents. :)

This line of chromebooks have the price and specs of netbooks, with bulkier shape, less battery life and capabilities… for sure I will pass. A budget notebook with a AMD A6 chip, 4gb RAM and 500GB HD with Windows7/Ubuntu and chrome browser do the more and cost the same or less…

“If any one platform is poised to make the most noise in 2013, it’s Chrome OS. The vocal minority has made it clear, Windows 8 is not the savior Microsoft is looking for. And Google is here to pick up the slack. ”

What? If people don’t like Windows 8 they will hate Chrome OS. At least Windows can run desktop applications. Chrome OS is just a web browser.

5 Years ago a OS that was “Just a web browser” would have been crazy. But today with HTML5, WebGL, and more the WEB is a crazy platform. Anything can be ran in a web browser. And Chrome is a great one, that supports all the latest and greatest. Google drive, games such as Bastion and Dont starve both on steam are also on the Chrome web store (html5+webGL).

“Just a web browser” doesn’t mean much now.. It is a OS powered by a Web Browser which with todays tech wont cripple the experience much.

Im not sure about on the ARM chrome books. But it should run fine on the intel ones. Chrome on Ubuntu has great flash support, and should be similar on intel chromebooks. (again idk about arm ones, its probably fine there as well)

ChromeOS and Chromebooks are new to the market. COmpanies aren’t going to put a lot of money into something this new, and not know if they will receive any ROI on it. I love the idea of ChromeBooks, and think that this could be the MacOS to Android’s OS, with the App Store (Play Store) being incorporated into ChromeOS.

I believe that 2013 will see a lot of advancement for ChromeBooks, and I look forward to seeing what comes of it. I already see Google placing people in BestBuy to educate consumers on ChromeBooks, and they are right next to the Mac products.

Go with the Samsung Chromebook. I just got mine. It’s not my primary. It does only one thing (Chrome) but it does that one thing in aces. It is light, spunky, and fast enough. Don’t compare to ultrabooks, their not the same thing. A better comparison is against a tablet. I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a tablet. Their very nice and are certainly cool, but they don’t perform any useful function for me. My Android phone is fine for reading email, looking something up on the go, and even light gaming while I’m waiting at the DMV, doctors office, etc. I use my kindle (regular e-ink kind) for all my reading, and I read a lot (nothing compares with reading on a kindle, period.). If I’m gonna watch a movie, it will be at home on the big screen. I have need or want to watch a movie on a tablet. When it comes to production, a tablet just doesn’t have the stuff. That’s where the Chromebook comes in. Full keyboard, lightning fast startup, fully synced with my Google life. All for less than half the iPad price (plus I would still have to add a keyboard).

Good luck to anyone who bought the Samsung Chromebook. Mine worked great for a few weeks, then the signal started to drop. Every day it just got worse, sometimes would drop 30 or 40 times or not connect for 20 minutes or more. Started asking for router password over and over. Wish I had done some research on the stupid thing before I bought it, found out this is a very common problem with these chromebooks, including the Acer from what I found out. The sad thing is there is no wireless connection for either of these, so you get stuck with an expensive paperweight in the end. Also it seems this problem has been known about for almost a year now and no fix offered so far. Decided to try the HP chromebook, at least if there is a connection issue with this one you can connect using an ethernet cable.